Medical Alley Associationserves the individuals and organizations that comprise Minnesota's health industry by influencing policy, fostering connections and providing critical intelligence to improve the quality of health around the world.

Medical Alley Associationserves the individuals and organizations that comprise Minnesota's health industry by influencing policy, fostering connections and providing critical intelligence to improve the quality of health around the world.

SpineThera Translates Medical Alley Connection into $2 million Army Grant

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Association member SpineThera, a privately held pharmaceutical company located in Plymouth, Minnesota, has received a two million dollar grant from the US Army in support of SX600, a sustained-release, injectable micro-suspension corticosteroid for epidural injection to treat back pain.

Jeff Missling, CEO, SpineThera

SpineThera CEO Jeff Missling credits Medical Alley with starting them down the path; “I became aware of multiple government sources of funding for start-up companies by attending a Medical Alley event on the topic.”

Missling continued, “Medical Alley convened an event in 2014 featuring Doug Freitag of Bayside Materials, a consultant specializing in federal funding opportunities for high technology development. He spoke on the ins and outs of pursuing federal funding to commercialize research.” After the Medical Alley introduction, Missling worked with Bayside Materials over the next three years to identify, prepare, submit, and ultimately receive the two million dollar grant.

The impact could be significant as Missling explained. “Army doctors have shown that treating back pain in forward deployed pain clinics results in return-to-duty rates greater than 90%, but have also reported that 35% of coalition forces who received an epidural steroid injection for back pain returned to these forward deployed pain clinics for another injection. The typical interval between injections was 2-4 weeks. Our goal with SX600 is to offer a long-acting injectable drug that provides pain relief and reduces the need for repeat or frequent epidural steroid injections.”

Medical Alley Association works to connect the dots so members can access the resources needed to bring breakthrough technologies to patients in need. Missling and SpineThera have leveraged this partnership to their benefit and the benefit of patients, including U.S. military personal; “My participation in Medical Alley provided me with the knowledge that such funding sources exist and, more importantly, connected me to specialists in the field who could help up navigate the grant application and award process.”